


Resurrected

by AidanChase



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen, new52 verse, resurrected damian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AidanChase/pseuds/AidanChase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian Wayne has returned from the dead, only to find the world has changed too much since he’s been gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resurrected

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I never posted this on ao3 but it's been on my blog for months now. I only vaguely remember writing it and re-found it recently so I figured what the heck, here you go. It's from a time in my life when I was 100% convinced they were going to kill Nightwing (which I'm pretty sure they -again- pulled away from but who knows; his life is always in jeopardy) and this was the only way I was going to be able to accept a world without Dick Grayson: one with advanced Damian Wayne character development.

He came up suddenly for air and gasped like he hadn’t breathed in years.

Truthfully, he hadn’t breathed in six months.

The sudden sensation of life filling up every pore of his being, and all the stimuli that came with it, overloaded his brain. The hot water dripping down his naked body, the cold air hitting his chest and arms, his once-stiff body suddenly pumping with blood and the ability to move, his own heartbeat pounding in his chest and ears—everything was too much and he put his hands to his head and screamed.

———

Damian Wayne stepped out of the car and pulled the hoodie up over his face. He paid the cab driver and set off on the streets of downtown Gotham. His first stop was stealing a motorbike so he could get around town with ease. His second stop was Wayne Enterprise, to see just what had changed in the year he’d been gone.

Six months a corpse, six month with the League of Assassins as they tried to rehabilitate him.

He understood a bit of what Jason Todd went through now. It wasn’t easy returning from the dead. But Jason had a different set of issues than Damian. The largest difference was that where Jason acted out of blunt passion, Damian acted out of a sharp coldness. That coldness allowed him to stay sane as memories came back in pieces and dreams and his life knit itself back together excruciatingly.

He leaned against a wall across the street and watched the front doors of Wayne Enterprise. It was nearly time for Bruce to be out of a board meeting, and Damian wanted to see for himself what had changed. He understood now Jason’s fear of being replaced, but that wasn’t his biggest concern. If he was honest with himself, his biggest fear was that nothing would be different.

He wanted to believe that his death had impacted their lives. That something was visibly different now that he was gone.

But Damian was rarely honest with himself.

Bruce came out of building and looked like his usual vacant and cheerful Bruce Wayne act. But Damian knew that if he really wanted to see how Bruce had changed, it wasn’t Bruce Wayne he needed to track. It was Batman.

Still, he found himself on his stolen motorbike and following Bruce’s car, even though he knew it would only take him to the manor.

He didn’t follow the car outside the city. He pulled off onto a street and waited at the corner, where he could still see up the hill and watch the car pull into the gates. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, but he was waiting for something. Maybe anything.

He spent another two weeks stalking Bruce and Batman. Batman had of course noticed there was someone tailing him, and he was putting every effort into finding out who. Damian was trained by the best, though, and he wasn’t going to be discovered until he was ready.

It was encouraging to know Bruce hadn’t replaced him. There was no new Robin filling in as a partner. It left a strange hole in the Batman-Inc team that Damian had come to feel a part of, and he couldn’t help but feel glad that hole was there.

There was one thing, however, that worried him. A bigger hole in the team, and he wasn’t going to reveal himself to Bruce until he had his answers.

In all his stalking of Batman, he hadn’t seen Nightwing, or intercepted any communications with him. And this bothered Damian. Sure, a small piece of him would be happy if Nightwing had gone rogue after his death, but most of him would be heartbroken. Because Grayson was like a small light in a dark room. A point of reference and safety, and the way Grayson behaved, he made you believe nothing could extinguish that light.

He found his answers in news reports, dated about six months earlier.

First, Nightwing’s identity had been compromised. There was a nice quote from Bruce Wayne in that article: “I’m heartbroken to know that my son is part of the crime in Gotham we’ve all been working so hard to stamp out, but kids will be kids, right?” The author noted that Richard Grayson was in fact an adult, and fully responsible for his own actions.

And then, only a few months ago, he’d been brutally murdered. Damian read every article he could—including an obituary by Clark Kent, the reporter’s first work in almost a year—on Nightwing’s death, but he knew that the reports were tweaked, suitable for the public, and not the truth of the matter. If he wanted the truth, he would have to go to Bruce.

But now, more than ever, he didn’t want to reveal himself. A knot in his stomach told him Bruce would be disappointed to have him back. That Bruce would rather have Grayson back. That Bruce would berate him for not returning sooner, in time to save Nightwing.

He sobbed for the entire night and it never even crossed his mind that he should be out tracking Batman.

When the sun rose, he watched it with an empty heart. It looked cold, like all the real light was missing. It felt like all the life that rushed into him a month ago had gone out of his body. And he wasn’t even sure he minded.

By noon, however, he had a plan. It was the only option, the only way to come back. He spent the rest of the day putting the plan into motion. By midnight, he was ready.

A familiar costume took the streets that night—full body black suit, emblazoned with a red bat and stripes down the arms. Nightwing resurrected—because as much as the world might need Batman, Batman Inc needed a Nightwing.


End file.
